WWII History

1939 Germany and Russia agree on partition of Poland. 217,000 Polish troops who are fighting against the Red Army surrender at Lvov. The NKVD begins rounding up thousands of Polish officers and deporting them to Russia where they will be executed a year later in the forest of Katyn near Smolensk. A Polish regiment repels […]

1939 60,000 Poles, all that remains of the Polish Southern Army surrender at Zamosz and Tomaszov. Romanian premier Armand Calinescu assassinated by Fascist Iron Guard for supporting Poles. Heydrich issues instructions to SS Einsatzgruppen (special action squads) in Poland regarding treatment of Jews, stating they are to be gathered into ghettos near railroads for the

1939 Prime Minister Chamberlain claims that at least 6 U-boats have been sunk in first fortnight of the war. German troops in eastern Poland withdraw to the line agreed upon in the German-Soviet treaty. The Red Army moves in behind them to occupy the formerly Russian territory. Polish troops at Grodno manage to kill 800

1939 First British casualty list published. The conclusion of the battle of the Vistula bend, with the Wehrmacht taking 170,000 prisoners. Germans suppress a Czech rebellion. Lavrenti Beria, chief of the Soviet NKVD, sets up a Directorate for Prisoners of War and establishes camps for the 240,000 Polish POWs in Soviet custody; about 37,000 will

1939 German and Soviet troops link at Brest-Litovsk, Poland. Polish cryptographers flee to Paris with vital information on German Enigma codes. 1941 Russians conscript all men aged 16 – 50. Units of Army Group South capture Poltava in the Ukraine. The Russians evacuate Kiev, but the ‘fight to the death’ continues in the area for